Key Statistic
3: Months between Nahúm Palacios Arteaga's murder and the time authorities conducted an autopsy.

Six journalists were murdered in a seven-week span, with three more slain by year's end, a rash of killings that was made all the more shocking by the government's careless and dismissive response. Inattentive and botched investigative work yielded the arrests of but two suspects in all of the killings, and a judge quickly dismissed charges against them. CPJ found that at least three of the victims were slain in direct relation to their work, and it continued to investigate the other cases in late year.

Key Statistic
4: Journalists abducted in Durango by gangsters who demand that TV stations air their propaganda.

Organized crime groups exerted fierce pressure on the Mexican press as their control spread across vast regions and nearly every aspect of society. Pervasive self-censorship by news media in areas under drug traffickers' influence was a devastating consequence of violence and intimidation. Ten journalists were killed, at least three in direct relation to their work, and three other reporters disappeared. In addition, journalists were assaulted, kidnapped, or forced into exile, while media outlets were targeted by bomb attacks, making Mexico one of the world's deadliest places for the press. After meeting with a CPJ delegation, President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa pledged to push for legislation making attacks on free expression a federal crime, and announced the launch of a security program for at-risk reporters.

Top Developments
• U.S. military ignores call for probe into killings of 16 journalists in Iraq.
• Under Pearl Act, State Department will track press freedom worldwide.

Key Statistic
14: Journalists imprisoned by U.S. military forces for prolonged periods without charge between 2004 and 2010.

In two important advances, Congress passed legislation to track press freedom worldwide while military forces released an Iraqi journalist who had been held without charge for 17 months. But officials obstructed a photojournalist covering the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and reporters documenting military judicial proceedings at Guantánamo Bay, in Cuba. A U.S. military video, disclosed by the website WikiLeaks, raised questions as to whether U.S. troops acted properly when they shot and killed an Iraqi journalist and his assistant in 2007.

Key Statistic
1,300: Hours of presidential speeches that were aired between 1999 and 2010.

Using all the tools of power, President Hugo Chávez Frías continued his aggressive campaign to silence critical news media. In the waning days of a lame-duck National Assembly, the Chávez administration pushed through measures to restrict Internet content and tighten control over broadcast licenses. Relying on politicized courts, the government barred two major newspapers from publishing images of crime and violence in the run-up to September legislative elections. And through a series of politically motivated regulatory actions, the administration intimidated one critical broadcaster, Globovisión, and banished another, RCTV International.

New
York, February 14, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Cuban
authorities today to place no conditions on the release of journalist Héctor
Maseda Gutiérrez, who was freed on parole Saturday. Maseda Gutiérrez is a founding member of the independent
news agency Grupo de Trabajo Decoro and a winner of CPJ's International Press
Freedom Award in 2008.

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New York, February 11, 2011--The Catholic Church in Havana announced today that jailed Cuban journalist Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez, a CPJ International Press Freedom Awardee, at left, would be released after nearly eight years behind bars. But news reports, including one citing the journalist's wife, said Maseda Gutiérrez has balked at conditions placed on his release and at the continued detention of other political dissidents.

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New York, February 11,
2011--The Committee to Protect Journalistscondemns Wednesday's violent attack against two media companies in
the Mexican city of Torreón, Coahuila state, during which a TV engineer was
shot to death and equipment was destroyed and stolen.

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New York, February 9,
2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the safety of Guatemalan
television journalist Oscar de León, who has received multiple death threats
and had his van shot at in the southwestern municipality of Quetzaltenango,
according to news reports and CPJ interviews. De León, a correspondent for the private
national Guatevisión TV network, said he has received the threats since he probed
alleged police corruption.

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Dear President Rodríguez Zapatero: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed that the Cuban government has yet to fulfill its promise to free all journalists imprisoned during the 2003 crackdown on dissent. We urge your government, which was a key party to the agreement to release the prisoners by November 2010, to hold President Raúl Castro to his word.